Poison Belt

Conan Doyle Sir Arthur

Description

Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's The Poison Belt follows on from The Lost World, but this time Professor Challenger trades the jungle setting for a room in his own house. Edward Malone, Lord John Roxton, and Professor Summerlee arrive at the Professor's home, each with a tank of oxygen - the result of receiving a puzzling behest from Challenger via telegraph. Challenger and his wife usher them into a sealed room - in his research the Professor has predicted that a poisonous ether belt is about to reach the earth and quite likely cause the end of the humanity.

Sujets

• Science fiction

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2009
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775415350
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE POISON BELT
* * *
SIR ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
 
*

The Poison Belt First published in 1913.
ISBN 978-1-775415-35-0
© 2009 THE FLOATING PRESS.
While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike.
Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
The Poison Belt Chapter I - The Blurring of Lines Chapter II - The Tide of Death Chapter III - Submerged Chapter IV - A Diary of the Dying Chapter V - The Dead World Chapter VI - The Great Awakening
The Poison Belt
*
Being an account of another adventure ofProf. George E. Challenger, Lord John Roxton,Prof. Summerlee, and Mr. E. D. Malone,the discoverers of "The Lost World"
Chapter I - The Blurring of Lines
*
It is imperative that now at once, while these stupendous eventsare still clear in my mind, I should set them down with thatexactness of detail which time may blur. But even as I do so, Iam overwhelmed by the wonder of the fact that it should be ourlittle group of the "Lost World"—Professor Challenger,Professor Summerlee, Lord John Roxton, and myself—who havepassed through this amazing experience.
When, some years ago, I chronicled in the Daily Gazette ourepoch-making journey in South America, I little thought that itshould ever fall to my lot to tell an even stranger personalexperience, one which is unique in all human annals and muststand out in the records of history as a great peak among thehumble foothills which surround it. The event itself will alwaysbe marvellous, but the circumstances that we four were togetherat the time of this extraordinary episode came about in a mostnatural and, indeed, inevitable fashion. I will explain theevents which led up to it as shortly and as clearly as I can,though I am well aware that the fuller the detail upon such asubject the more welcome it will be to the reader, for thepublic curiosity has been and still is insatiable.
It was upon Friday, the twenty-seventh of August—a date forevermemorable in the history of the world—that I went down to theoffice of my paper and asked for three days' leave of absencefrom Mr. McArdle, who still presided over our news department.The good old Scotchman shook his head, scratched his dwindlingfringe of ruddy fluff, and finally put his reluctance into words.
"I was thinking, Mr. Malone, that we could employ you toadvantage these days. I was thinking there was a story that youare the only man that could handle as it should be handled."
"I am sorry for that," said I, trying to hide my disappointment."Of course if I am needed, there is an end of the matter. Butthe engagement was important and intimate. If I could be spared—"
"Well, I don't see that you can."
It was bitter, but I had to put the best face I could upon it.After all, it was my own fault, for I should have known by thistime that a journalist has no right to make plans of his own.
"Then I'll think no more of it," said I with as muchcheerfulness as I could assume at so short a notice. "What wasit that you wanted me to do?"
"Well, it was just to interview that deevil of a man down atRotherfield."
"You don't mean Professor Challenger?" I cried.
"Aye, it's just him that I do mean. He ran young Alec Simpson ofthe Courier a mile down the high road last week by the collarof his coat and the slack of his breeches. You'll have read ofit, likely, in the police report. Our boys would as sooninterview a loose alligator in the zoo. But you could do it,I'm thinking—an old friend like you."
"Why," said I, greatly relieved, "this makes it all easy. It sohappens that it was to visit Professor Challenger at Rotherfieldthat I was asking for leave of absence. The fact is, that it isthe anniversary of our main adventure on the plateau three yearsago, and he has asked our whole party down to his house to seehim and celebrate the occasion."
"Capital!" cried McArdle, rubbing his hands and beaming throughhis glasses. "Then you will be able to get his opeenions out ofhim. In any other man I would say it was all moonshine, but thefellow has made good once, and who knows but he may again!"
"Get what out of him?" I asked. "What has he been doing?"
"Haven't you seen his letter on 'Scientific Possibeelities' into-day's Times?"
"No."
McArdle dived down and picked a copy from the floor.
"Read it aloud," said he, indicating a column with his finger."I'd be glad to hear it again, for I am not sure now that I havethe man's meaning clear in my head."
This was the letter which I read to the news editor of theGazette:—
"SCIENTIFIC POSSIBILITIES"
"Sir,—I have read with amusement, not wholly unmixed with someless complimentary emotion, the complacent and wholly fatuousletter of James Wilson MacPhail which has lately appeared inyour columns upon the subject of the blurring of Fraunhofer'slines in the spectra both of the planets and of the fixed stars.He dismisses the matter as of no significance. To a widerintelligence it may well seem of very great possibleimportance—so great as to involve the ultimate welfare of everyman, woman, and child upon this planet. I can hardly hope, bythe use of scientific language, to convey any sense of mymeaning to those ineffectual people who gather their ideas fromthe columns of a daily newspaper. I will endeavour, therefore,to condescend to their limitation and to indicate the situationby the use of a homely analogy which will be within the limitsof the intelligence of your readers."
"Man, he's a wonder—a living wonder!" said McArdle, shaking hishead reflectively. "He'd put up the feathers of a sucking-doveand set up a riot in a Quakers' meeting. No wonder he has madeLondon too hot for him. It's a peety, Mr. Malone, for it's agrand brain! We'll let's have the analogy."
"We will suppose," I read, "that a small bundle of connectedcorks was launched in a sluggish current upon a voyage acrossthe Atlantic. The corks drift slowly on from day to day with thesame conditions all round them. If the corks were sentient wecould imagine that they would consider these conditions to bepermanent and assured. But we, with our superior knowledge, knowthat many things might happen to surprise the corks. They mightpossibly float up against a ship, or a sleeping whale, or becomeentangled in seaweed. In any case, their voyage would probablyend by their being thrown up on the rocky coast of Labrador. Butwhat could they know of all this while they drifted so gently dayby day in what they thought was a limitless and homogeneousocean?
"Your readers will possibly comprehend that the Atlantic, in thisparable, stands for the mighty ocean of ether through which wedrift and that the bunch of corks represents the little andobscure planetary system to which we belong. A third-rate sun,with its rag tag and bobtail of insignificant satellites, wefloat under the same daily conditions towards some unknown end,some squalid catastrophe which will overwhelm us at the ultimateconfines of space, where we are swept over an etheric Niagara ordashed upon some unthinkable Labrador. I see no room here forthe shallow and ignorant optimism of your correspondent, Mr.James Wilson MacPhail, but many reasons why we should watch witha very close and interested attention every indication of changein those cosmic surroundings upon which our own ultimate fatemay depend."
"Man, he'd have made a grand meenister," said McArdle. "It justbooms like an organ. Let's get doun to what it is that'stroubling him."
"The general blurring and shifting of Fraunhofer's lines of thespectrum point, in my opinion, to a widespread cosmic change ofa subtle and singular character. Light from a planet is thereflected light of the sun. Light from a star is a self-producedlight. But the spectra both from planets and stars have, in thisinstance, all undergone the same change. Is it, then, a changein those planets and stars? To me such an idea is inconceivable.What common change could simultaneously come upon them all? Isit a change in our own atmosphere? It is possible, but in thehighest degree improbable, since we see no signs of it aroundus, and chemical analysis has failed to reveal it. What, then,is the third possibility? That it may be a change in theconducting medium, in that infinitely fine ether which extendsfrom star to star and pervades the whole universe. Deep in thatocean we are floating upon a slow current. Might that currentnot drift us into belts of ether which are novel and haveproperties of which we have never conceived? There is a changesomewhere. This cosmic disturbance of the spectrum proves it.It may be a good change. It may be an evil one. It may be aneutral one. We do not know. Shallow observers may treat the matteras one which can be disregarded, but one who like myself ispossessed of the deeper intelligence of the true philosopherwill understand that the possibilities of the universe areincalculable and that the wisest man is he who holds himselfready for the unexpected. To take an obvious example, who wouldundertake to say that the mysterious and universal outbreak ofillness, recorded in your columns this very morning as havingbroken out among the indigenous races of Sumatra, has noconnection with some cosmic change to which they may respondmore quickly than the more complex peoples of Europe? I throwout the idea for what it is worth. To assert it is, in thepresent stage, as unprofitable as to deny it, but it is anunimaginative numskull who is too dense to perceive that it iswell within the bounds of scientific possibility.
"Yours faithfully, "GEORGE EDWARD CHALLENGER.
"THE BRIARS, ROTHERFIELD."
"It's a fine, steemulating